Knights and Princes and Faeries

Guest Author - Elizabeth Darrach

Hello, and welcome back. I hope you´ve all had a great reading week in between addressing holiday cards and shopping trips.

First up this week is Prince of Charming by Karen Fox (Jove Magical Romance). Kate Carmichael´s rough life is about to get worse. The elderly woman who´s acted as her guardian for many years has died and now her nephew is evicting Kate. The only person she can confide her troubles in is the gorgeous man in the painting hanging on the living room wall. And when she´s searching for a new will she believes that Nana must have left, she accidentally frees Robin Goodfellow, the man trapped in the portrait. In their search for the new will, and a way for Robin to get home to have Titania remove her spell, they must deal with nasty Fae and an annoying little problem that only allows the two to be a certain distance apart before drawing them together again. Not my favorite. They have a tendency to forget about the will for long periods of time, and the nasty nephew has an unconvincing change of heart later. I´m giving this one only three of Cupid´s five arrows.

Next is "My Wild Irish Rose" by Rachel Wilson (Jove´s Irish Eyes). Rose Larkin is about to embark on a new life--as an adventuress. Cullen O´Banyon rescues her from a man with less-than-honorable intentions shortly after her arrival in Ireland with her aunt. Cullen is definitely a solid sort of man, and nothing at all like her aunt has planned for her. The trouble is, Rose isn´t much of an adventuress. While I´ve enjoyed the other titles in this series, this one was hard for me to get through. Rose lets her aunt push her around--very sweetly, mind you--for most of this book, and Cullen wants to shake her. I wanted to, too. And until the second third of this book, you won´t see any of Ireland. It felt like it could have been set anywhere, because no one has a wonderful Irish lilt to their dialogue, including the hero. This one earns only two of Cupid´s arrows.

Lastly is My Champion by Glynnis Campbell (Jove Historical). This tale of Duncan de Ware is the first of a new trilogy titled The Knights of de Ware. First brother Duncan feels a duty to protect those who need it. In this case, it is Linet de Montfort who´s embarrassed a Spanish pirate in public. But Linet thinks Duncan is a gypsy who keeps following her. Though Linet´s refusal to believe him when he does tell her his identity wore thin after a while, this story is very entertaining, and wonderfully true to the time period. I´m giving this one three arrows.